Articles and News

Merrick, NY—If your employees follow the 10 Ground Rules For Using Social Media outlined by industry expert Matthew Perosi, you shouldn’t ever have to worry about what they might say about you online in their off hours. But if an employee does vent about his or her job on a personal social media page, what can you do?

Not much, according to a recent article on AOL.

The government protects workers' rights to say what they want about where they work, even if it's in a vitriolic and insulting tweet or post, according to the article. It's illegal for an employee to be fired for a post about working conditions like pay, hours, assignments, difficult supervisors, dress code, or any other issue. So employers shouldn't try to restrict workers' freedom of speech and they can’t legally retaliate for a post they don't like.

But an employee can be fired for posts that disparage a company’s products or services or reveal trade secrets or financial information, attorney Paula Lopez told AOL.

The best way to deal with this situation is to ensure it doesn’t happen in the first place, of course. Apart from Perosi’s list of rules—which does address many potential areas of conflict—keep an ear to the ground for grumblings of dissatisfaction and address them proactively before they escalate. Sometimes employees don’t understand the reason behind a rule they don’t like, but once given an explanation they can accept it as necessary, albeit unpopular. And sometimes a rule that exists because “that’s how we’ve always done it” has outgrown its raison d’etre and should be changed.

Top image: Planyourmeetings.com